The Ultimate Masters of Evil
by Captain Kobold
Summary: The Triskelion is under attack from a group of supervillains. Can the Ultimates win through?
1. Default Chapter

When the Wasp saw what had happened to the Triskelion, her first reaction was disbelief. Then shock. And finally, anger. She got out her mobile, and started making calls.

"Hello, Agent Carter? I heard that you were setting up Triskelion Alternate in Trenton today, and – well, have you heard what – ah, so you have – Can you have a team here by – Yes, I'll wait for them."

"Hello, Tony. How is – Oh, hello, Sara. Could you hand me over – Yes, hello, Tony. Are you in New York today? Well look out the window... Yeah, that was basically my reaction, too. Your suit's in there, Tony, so you better swing by Sharon Carter's office in Trenton for the spare. I'll be waiting for you by the gate."

"Hey, Thor. How's the Burning Man Festival this year? Listen, something's come up at the Triskelion, so we need you, Wanda and Pietro in New York, as soon as possible. Hurry, OK?"

"Hello, Baxter Building? Could you put me through to Dr. Storm? Yes I'll hold... Hello, Dr. Storm, this is Janet van Dyne, from the Ultimates? We were wondering if you could spare us an hour or so today. Yeah, that'd be great."

"Hello, Professor Xavier. Yeah, listen we need your help... no, this is the kinda stuff you can do from home... Listen, I'll call you back when everyone's here, OK? Don't go away."

Her phone calls made, she turned back to the Triskelion, still not quite believing what she was seeing.

Because every door and window in the Triskelion was covered in pink gunk.


	2. Chapter 2

It took a half-hour before people began arriving. The first was Iron Man, carrying the SHIELD van.

"Hell of a way to beat traffic, Tony."

Sharon Carter and her team got out and began setting up equipment. Next was Quicksilver, carrying Wanda. Dr. Storm and his young students, Reed Richards and Sue Storm, arrived and began taking notes on the slime. Lastly was Thor, flying behind his hammer.

With everyone there, Wasp began the meeting in the tent that Sharon Carter's team had set up outside the building. "I called you all here because the Triskelion was attacked by super-powered terrorists this morning. With the current problem with telecommunications – the 'No escape it comes' recordings – they managed to get in while the system was down. As soon as they did, this stuff began growing over the apertures. Agent Carter, do you have anything to add?"

SHIELD Agent-in-Charge Sharon Carter cleared her throat, and took out some papers. "At 0900 today, the Triskelion mainframe went offline. From what we can tell from our link, someone hacked into their system and shut it down. Before the computers shut off, we saw the programming of the virus. And, unfortunately, it appears to be a variant of the Chitauri programmes that are used for the same purpose. Now, this has two possibilities. First, someone has found a trove of abandoned Chitauri hardware, and is using it to attack us for their own reasons. Or, second, a rogue Chitauri cell is moving against us."

"Just a second," said Iron Man. "Where's Hawkeye? Where's Hank? Where Cap? Where's Natasha? Where's Nick?"

"Hawkeye was on-duty when the attack came. As far as we can tell, he's still in there. Hank was recuperating from wounds suffered when the Sinister Six escaped, he's also still in there. As for Cap, Natasha, and Nick... They're in Tunguska, on a secret mission, and I can't tell you any more for reasons of national security."

"And what about the hole on the topside?"

"Yeah we noticed that too. So far, we've sent in a Swat team, some Marines, and a counter-terror team from the Pentagon. None of them came out."

"Huh. Well, what do we know about the slime?"

"That's what I called Dr. Storm for. Dr. Storm?"

Dr. Storm looked up from his notes. "As best as I can tell, this stuff is some kind of... living glue. And solvents chemistry is not my strong point, so I'm essentially flying blind."

Reed Richards spoke up. "What about Paste Pot Pete? He was good at stuff like this."

Dr. Storm snapped his fingers. That's brilliant. Get him on your mobile."

"Who's Paste Pot Pete?"

"His name's Peator Davidovich Petruski. He was a student of the think-tank for a while. Dynamite with solvent chemistry, but he had a load of fights with my son, Johnny. When he turned 18, he left us. He's living with his parents in Little Italy."

"OK." Agent Carter stood a second, organising her thoughts. "OK, you get on the phone to him, see if he'll come. Thor, Tony, Quicksilver – get over to Triskelion Alternate and bring back the filing supercomputers, maybe we've got something on these mooks. Professor Xavier?"

"I'm here, Jan," said a voice from the speakerphone. "I've been scanning the building, and although the built-in psi-shields are preventing anything in depth, I can tell you that no-one has been killed."

"Alright then," said Carter, then turned to face the group. "Well? What are you guys waiting for? Move out!"

"What are they waiting for?" said the Melter, as the three of them crowded round the screen in the office. The screen was connected to the security camera on the north side of the building. It was facing the parking lot, where the command tent was.

"Be cool, Clare. They'll have to move eventually," said Phil, who was fiddling with the control harness for his armour.

"Enough o' this," said John, who was so frustrated that he was starting to glow. "I say, we go out there and frag the moth-"

"No," said the only other person in the room. The three of them turned around to face him on the couch. When the room had been built, the couch had faced the window, catching the sunlight in the latter half of the day. Now, the fourth man sat there, reading the adaptation of 'I, Robot' by the lamplight while watching the three of them.

He was called Pilot, and he gave Clare the creeps. From what Phil had told her, he gave him the creeps as well. She doubted anything gave John the creeps. The lamplight glinted off his bald scalp as got up and walked towards them. "We stick to Zemo's plan. We wait for them to come in, we separate them, and we kill them all. You all go down as the most famous mercenaries of all time, and I will plant a chemical bomb that will kill everyone in this building. In the ensuing chaos, the super-powered prisoners in the lower levels escape, and New York dissolves into chaos. Zemo exposes these fascists for what they are, and everyone goes home happy. Are we clear?"

The three of them nodded.


	3. Chapter 3

Suddenly, Tony had a brainwave.

"Guards," he said.

The rest of the team clearly couldn't see the vast amount of thought that had gone into this statement, and he was forced to elucidate.

"The guards in the security complex, guarding all the freaks that we mostly get from Spider-Man. After Norman Osborn escaped, Fury had the place rebuilt, it's like a friggin' fortress. If there are guards in there, could they get out?"

Sharon Carter shook her head. "No, because after Osborn got out, we reworked the power system. There's now a new generator buried in the bedrock that powers the cells and the power-damping collars. If there are any guards still free, they're not coming out."

Suddenly, a window on the first floor exploded, and a man fell out.

Rick Jones, Deputy Chief of Security for the Triskelion, was not having a nice day. Firstly, he had drawn the short straw to guard the cells during lunch-hour, and then the com-system had gone out. He was worried. Next to him, the other guard, Kate Waynesboro, on detached duty from Psi-Divison, was also looking worried.

From across the corridor, there came a laugh. It was Nguyen Mordo, the blind guy who had killed some professors up at NYU. "You friends are in peril, Richard Milhouse Jones," he said. "Unless you act, they will surely perish."

"And how do you know that?" said Rick, sounding a lot more confident than he was.

Mordo tapped an eye tattoo on his palm. "I've seen it," he said, "with this."

Rick stopped and thought. Maybe he could disable the lock on the door, but they would still need someone with superpowers to get it open.

Mordo laughed. "Yeah, that's it Jones."

Rick started. Had Mordo read his thoughts? He decided to review the power-nullifying shackles once this was over.

Across the corridor from Mordo, a failed PI called Mac Gargan stood up. "Camahn, man. You let me out, and I swear, I'll get you outta here so fast – "

"Shut up, Gargan. And even if I would, I don't have your code," said Rick, going to the door. He picked up the clipboard with the previous day's entrants. He walked down the hall, and stopped in front of the cell of Cletus Cassidy. "What are your powers, Cassidy?"

Cassidy grinned, a predatory grin, that hadn't left his face since he'd come into the building. "Haven't got any, man. I'm just waiting for you guys to realise your mistake and let me out."

Kate Waynesboro started edging away from the cell. "Don't let him out, Rick. I can see into his mind."

Rick shrugged, and looked down at the list. The other new prisoner was…

"Simon Williams," said Rick. "Of Williams Innovations?"

"The same," said Williams. He was trying to do yoga out of a book.

"What are your powers?"

"Why should I tell you?"

Rick was losing patience. "Because we're trapped underground, in the most secure prison in the world, with three toilets to a hundred cons, and there's no food. Now will you help or not?"

Williams got up. "All right. See, the human body has a magnetic field, the Kirlian aura, which is a good indicator of health, right? So my company tried to find the formula for human DNA that can absorb magnetic energy and use it to gain enhanced strength. I was part of the testing process."

"So if we could supercharge you with electricity, you could get us out?"

"Yeah. So how do you know that I will?"

Kate Waynesboro spoke up. "Because you're a good man, Simon. You didn't give up when Stark International started outselling your company, you won't give up now."

Simon sighed. "Alright, but you still can't –"

Rick punched a code into the control console by the door. Simon's collar beeped, and fell off. Rick and Kate took their electro-stun prods from the 'umbrella stand', and came towards him.

They crowded around the man who had fallen out of the window. He hadn't woken up yet. They were hoping that he could tell them who had taken control of the Triskelion. Suddenly, he started awake.

"Zemo!" he yelled.

He suddenly noticed that he wasn't inside anymore, and began babbling. Reed Richards, who was not good at dealing with people, went into the lab-tent. Inside, Sue and Paste Pot Pete were hard at work dealing with samples of the gunk that covered the doors. They were clearly excited about something. Reed walked over. "What's up?"

Sue looked up, clearly excited. "We took samples earlier today, to look for weaknesses. And did you see, just after the guy fell through the window, there was a small ripple went through the gunk. So we took another sample. And it's incredible – the gunk has actually mutated, so it's now denser than before, and partly fireproof. But, when it did this, it lost part of its coherency. By my reckoning, this thing should collapse in," she looked down at her clipboard, "a thousand generations."

Paste Pot Pete looked up. "I brought some solvents from home," he said, "and if I can have my box from the Baxter Building, I can bring that thing down by this time tomorrow."

Reed nodded, and went to find Dr. Storm and arrange for Pete's box to be brought over. He went back to the crowd around the fallen man, who had moved him into one of the tents after Iron Man had used his sensors to find whether his back was broken. He was given descriptions of the men inside. "The big one, they called him the Radioactive Man. He has a harness that makes him glow. He throws energy from his hands, like Magneto!"

Reed and Dr. Storm talked for a while, and Dr. Storm agreed to call the Baxter Building immediately. An ambulance came up, and the man was taken to a nearby hospital. "Who was he?" Reed asked Thor.

Thor picked a thin brown oblong off the table. "According to his wallet, he's James Woo, agent of SHIELD, with an address in Long Island. He must've escaped and broken free." Thor looked at Sharon Carter, who was looking for something on the laptop on her desk on the other side of the tent. "What are you looking for, Agent-In-Charge?"

Sharon looked up. "Radioactive Man," she said. "I know I've heard it somewhere before, and I've got – there!" She pressed 'print', and picked up the pages as they came out of the printer. "See, the tech-guys arranged this recently – a comprehensive database of all the feasibility studies that the Super-Soldier program did, over the years. The idea is that, with recent advances in computers and genetics, the projects that were impossible in the 40's, 50's and 60's could be reworked with modern technology. Here," she said, pointing at the final page as it came out of the printer, "is a study done in 1951. Cap was missing presumed dead, and with the Second World War over, and the advent of nuclear weapons, the Super Soldier program was basically on the rocks. So they tried to gain funding from the Pentagon with the idea of an atomic super-soldier – someone who could control radiation, divert it away from frontline troops. The Pentagon showed interest, but the project was impossible at the time." She leafed through pages, to nearer the end. "Then, after the Cold War, the scientists of what was left of the American Super Soldier program met their Russian counterparts. They decided to compare notes, and they had a Radioactive Man project around the same time we did. So they combined research, and shared the information. Now, someone seems to have stolen the info from us or the Russians."

Thor went over to the screen, and began looking at filenames. "Project War Machine…Project Abomination…Project USAgent…What are these?"

Sharon Carter leant over, and turned off the laptop. "They're need-to-know, thunder man. They're need-to-know."

Thor stood up, angry. "Thunder _god_," he said.

"Whatever," said Carter, and turned back to Reed, who had been joined by Iron Man. "Where've you been, Tony?"

"I was trying to convince Interpol and the FBI to do word-searches through their databases. Here's my results on Zemo." He set down another set of sheets. "Guys a hacker, and a legend among hackers. Last year on World Bicycle Day, he blew out every traffic light in Atlanta. Year before that, he opened up the CIA's main database to the general public for a day. Not to mention his apparent vendetta with Microsoft. Law-enforcement has been trying to get a line on this guy since he was implicated in the Oklahoma City Bombing, but it's weird – there's stuff in some of the older files, about a famous hippy named Zemo, and going back further to the files of the House Committee of Un-American Activities. It's _weird_."

Carter began pacing. "So what are we talking about, people?" she said as the rest of the Ultimates drifted into the tent after Iron Man. "Is this guy the real deal, or just an admirer?"

Jan looked thoughtful. "I remember Betty Ross telling me about some blogger called Zemo – claimed we were white supremacists, next week claimed that Cap was an impostor, but after the Chitauri thing he just vanished."

"Right." Sharon Carter walked out of the tent, and the others followed her. They went to the lab tent, and outlined her plan to Sue Storm. "Do we know enough yet?"

Sue Storm nodded.

"All right." Sharon Carter turned around. "Saddle up, boys and girls. The Ultimates are going in.


	4. Chapter 4

_And so, I finally say it: I don't own these characters. Even the characters not yet seen in this context, like Paste Pot Pete, Radioactive Man, and that mysterious terrorist called Zemo? I don't own them. I was pre-empted by those jerks at Marvel Comics, who are going to try and sue me when this is all over and done with._

_Also, this was an attempt at writing about the Ultimate version of the Masters of Evil, but it seems that Marvel got the same idea, because the current Ultimates arc(which will probably be over by the time you read this, but never mind) is about a team of 'anti-Ultimates', super-terrorists to their super-soldiers._

"Radioactive Man?" said Sue, and laughed. "Damn, when that guy gets out, Matt Groening is going to sue the pants off this guy."

"Yeah," said Johnny," looking at the Triskelion. "So, when are you guys going in?"

"You're not going?" said Sue in surprise. "I would have thought that we'd have to hold you back."

Johnny snorted. "Pfft. Dad already told me that that thing's already fireproof. What am I going to do, melt it? Nah, you guys can handle this, just let – "

"Oh, I'm not going in either," said Sue. "Paste Pot Pete said he needed a biologist to calculate all the science-stuff he couldn't handle. Basically, its just Ben, Wasp, Thor Iron Man, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, and Reed."

"Hell of a 'just', Ms. Storm," said Agent Carter, looking up from her desk. "So what have you got?"

"Oh," said Sue, reaching for her file, "Pete and I have come up with this formula which should blow a big enough hole for long enough to get everyone in. All we need are some explosive devices and some people to run through."

"Well, I can get you both those," said Agent Carter. As they came out of the tent, she looked at the crowd at the gates. "Damn news media, you never know who's watching."

In a room far away, Zemo watched events unfold on a little screen. All was going according to plan. The heroes might get in, but they wouldn't get out. His augmented mercenaries would see to that. And Pilot would see to them.

He remembered the first time he'd met Pilot, over eighty years before. He'd been a retainer to his father, just as had his family for as far back as both families had existed. But such was not for Zemo. In the rebellious phase all young people go through, he had tried to stop his father. And, since his father's life's work was the infiltration of the humans' civil systems, he had worked to divert and destroy them. It had become his life's work, and he had been damn good at it. But then: the invasion, the strike, the counterstrike. His father Herr Kleiser had been incapacitated, perhaps even killed by these people, and for the first time in his life, he and his father were united in their hatred of a group. Pilot had found him, convinced him of his filial duties, and with several bank access codes, they were begun…

"Is there something you would like, sir?" said the orderly, snapping him out of his reverie.

"Yes, thank you," said Zemo. "Could you turn up the volume on the television and bring me some lunch?"


End file.
